“…The most prominent of these is DC‐STAMP (dendritic cell‐specific transmembrane protein) (Kukita et al, 2004; Yagi et al, 2005; Iwasaki et al, 2008; Mensah et al, 2010; Chiu et al, 2012; Chiu and Ritchlin, 2016), which has been identified as one of the most essential single factors supporting both differentiation and fusion. However, also other factors such as CD47 (Han et al, 2000; Lundberg et al, 2007; Maile et al, 2011; Koskinen et al, 2013; Hobolt‐Pedersen et al, 2014), syncytin‐1 (Soe et al, 2011), OC‐STAMP (osteoclast stimulatory transmembrane protein) (Miyamoto et al, 2012; Witwicka et al, 2015), dynamin (Shin et al, 2014; Verma et al, 2014), Pin1 (peptidyl‐prolyl cis‐trans isomerase NIMA‐interacting 1) (Islam et al, 2014; Cho et al, 2015), and e‐cadherin (Mbalaviele et al, 1995; Fiorino and Harrison, 2016) are involved in OC fusion, but it is important to stress that this list is not exhaustive. In order to identify the role of these factors , a series of molecular techniques, and cellular model systems have been employed, which in general are evaluated through end‐point measurements by counting the number of multi‐nucleated OCs, number of nuclei per OC, resorptive activity, and so forth at the end of the incubation period.…”